


Angelus ad virginem

by mihrsuri



Category: West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, Married Couple, Multi, Post Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three snapshots of Christmas in the TWW universe. Post S7 and takes a somewhat AU pathway. Written in the hope that it pleases and fills the spirit of your prompts oh recipient mine <3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angelus ad virginem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [godsdaisiechain (preux)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preux/gifts).



  
_But glad to have sat under Thunder and rain with you, And grateful too  
For sunlight on the garden._  
“the sunlight on the garden” by louis macneice

Leo hasn't made cookies in years (& he means making cookies - he’d found he was unexpectedly good at cooking though he never used it much). Not since Mallory was young and she’d insisted on too much frosting and they’d gotten the kitchen covered in crushed candy cane and chocolate everywhere. It was one of the rare times when he wasn't drinking, when he thought about it. Back before he’d tried to quit, tried to quit again and then finally managed it. Sometimes he thought he’d exchanged alcohol for politics but it wasn't quite like that.

Anyway, advising Jed was much healthier than alcohol. At least for the world at large. 

And now he’s here, making cookies for (& with) his grandchildren. Watching Mallory and Sam laugh at the way their youngest is smiling in her bouncy seat and the way the twins have managed to throw peanut butter chips everywhere and Leo McGarry, ex White House Chief of Staff thinks hell, I’ve never been happier. Sam had left the Santos Administration after Grace was born and had thrown himself in to non profit legal work that meant he could share the twins school run and be there on weekends. He’s damn proud of Sam, though he hadn't said it much, before. 

These days he can afford to make the time to say it, to speak these truths. To speak of love and of family born and made and of those precious things he counts as gifts of fortune. 

-

 

_Adeste Fideles Laeti triumphantes_  
Venite venite in Bethlehem  
Natum videte Regem agelorum  
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,  
Venite adoremus, Dominum  
Come All Ye Faithful

Josiah Bartlet remembers the first Christmas with the girls most of all. It’s not that he doesn't remember others - his first with Abbey - a tiny apartment and a smaller tree, the first memory he has of midnight mass, but it’s the first he has with all three of his daughters that keeps in his memory like a precious object. Zoey had been a brand new baby - his littlest baby girl, wrapped up against the cold and looking wide eyed at the lights, the snow and the decorations. Ellie had a principal part in the nativity play, he remembers that. Liz had had a choir solo - singing Silent Night and he treasures the remembrance of her bright voice.

There’s another Christmas as well. The first Christmas of the administration - before, well, before. 

And there’s the first after. CJ, his fourth daughter, newly pregnant and glowing. Sam, Mallory and the new baby boys. Josh, glued to his iPhone and Donna doing the same in their flying visit to New Hampshire before they returned to the new administration and the health care fight. He’s so proud of them all it sometimes causes him pain. Because he remembers when Zoey was a bright little baby, when CJ was young and Sam younger still and their cares were less. He remembers when Josh didn't have scars and didn't still flinch at noises, sometimes. When Donna didn't have scars that still ached and Toby’s hair was no longer greying. 

But they are here. They are here for Christmas and he is blessed by it. 

-

  
_With the ink of its showers and rains, with the quill of its lightning, with the hand of its clouds, winter wrote a letter upon the garden, in purple and blue. No artist could ever conceive the like of that. And this is why the earth, grown jealous of the sky, embroidered stars in the folds of the flower-beds._  
“Earth’s Embroidery” by solomon ibn gabirol 

The first Christmas they have in the White House Matt Santos still thinks he might be dreaming. Except of course, he isn't because the long list of parties and engagements are ridiculously real and somehow, somehow they've gotten through their first year well. There’s been so much done and yet, what is yet to be done weighs upon him. He keeps a running list in his mind, always. The things they have yet to do, the things that could have been done and the things that they have failed to do. Sometimes it’s that list that keeps him up at night - a haunt that has him thinking of a Christmas Carol with a shudder. 

But he enjoys seeing the kids excitement at all the trees, the choirs, the little and big gingerbread houses (and the tiny ones that the White House pastry chef slips them) and the fact that they can still help with the baking and cooking. He’s pleased they haven’t lost that, in the whirl of staff and secret service and bowing. They have kept that part of themselves that automatically tidies up, does the chores and makes their beds and he’s so proud of them. 

And ironically, he’s spent more time with them this Christmas than he had when he was a Senator from Chicago, flying between cities and driving between offices and town halls and managing to lose at least one pair of socks and a tie along the way. President Santos isn't sure if he misses those days or not, but he thinks it’s about even, if it was just the job change. Getting to see the kids every day, to eat dinner with them, to see them off to school? That’s a big deal. 

You don’t ever forget the job but Christmas is a chance to breath, to take a moment to look back and think, we did this. I did this. He invites his staff to a small gathering - just a party to say thank you. It’s during the day and includes a bunch of kids running around the Residence and cookies for everyone and far far too many bad jokes and it’s fantastic in a way that he never expected. 

There’s something he’s done right. He looks upon Donna and Josh, Mallory and Sam and thinks, we've done it. We've done good.


End file.
